The Balloon Guard
by Miashin
Summary: NON INCEST. A little story of how Mokuba get's Seto to remember the importance of family during New Years.


Hey all, a little one shot for you're reading pleasure. No this dose not in anyway make up for my lack of update on "Curse of Water", but I'll be getting to work on that one soon. Anyways, I have no idea why I'm writing a New Years fic around Easter. There is no common sense envolved, so don't bother looking for it. So let's just say the disclaimer and get to the story.

I DON'T OWN YU-GI-OH!

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The Balloon Guard

"Seto! Seeeeeeetooooooo!" Mokuba looked around for his older brother. What was he doing on this most important of days? The party was about to start without them, his brother had to be crazy to go and miss the new years celebration. After all it was the one time of the year where they were aloud to stay up way past their bed times.

The frown which had been hovering on the seven year olds face deepened as he searched room after room of the tiny orphanage, finally stopping in their room. Mokuba took a deep breath, cramming as much air as he could into his tiny lungs.

"SEEEEEETYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!" he shouted in the highest and loudest pitch he could manage. It hurt his ears, not to mention his throat, but the results where immediate. "What?" a more then a little annoyed Seto answered, as he stuck his head out of their closet, where he probably would have staid if Mokuba hadn't called him like that.

The ten year old had a chess book lying in his lap and had been trying to memorize every detail until Mokuba interrupted him. "You're missing the party." The younger boy replied as he attached himself to his brother's arm.

"So?" was Seto's only reply. Seto smiled at Mokuba who looked really upset now, he did enjoy goading his brother now and then. Truth be told Seto wasn't really that eager to go to the party. For one thing he did not like all the loud music that was playing outside, or the various explosions that came from Kami knows where, and worst of all the never-stay-the-same- for-one-second lights. It was all just too confusing, he would rather have his closet any day, thank you. Not to mention that he was fine tuning his plan. Technically it was already finished and only waiting for a chance to get at Gozaboru Kaiba, he was shceduald for a 'good will' visit this/next year, but Seto wasn't going to take any chances.

"So? So! How can you say that! We can't miss it, it's the most important day of the year!" Mokuba shot back at his brother, he did NOT like that smile on Seto's face. It made him feel like Seto was making fun of him, which in a way he was. "Funny," Seto said, his smile growing bigger, "I thought your birthday was the most important day of the year." Mokuba's face scrunched up in thought for a while as he ran that through his mind. He had said that hadn't he? "Fine, so this is the second most important day. And we still can't miss it." He finished off the last statement with a glare, daring his brother to object to what was, in his opinion, very sound reasoning.

"Fine, fine." Seto sighed as he put the book down and tried to get out of the closet. Funny, it used to be much easier, but then again there is a big difference between eight and ten. As soon as he had managed to untangle his legs from the closet and gain somewhat of a balance on them, Mokuba started dragging him outside and towards the center of the courtyard where the orphanage had set up a table with various snacks and drinks.

Seto winced as an especially loud set of fireworks was set off above them, Mokuba stared at the colors completely entranced by them. He wasn't the only, one most of the kids were also staring up and pointing out especially bright or loud explosions. Personally Seto wished he had some ear plugs, all the noise was starting to give him a headache and the bright color contrasts weren't helping.

Once Mokuba had his fill of watching the fire works he continued dragging his brother towards the snack table. With a sigh Seto resigned himself to his fate. This was going to be a long night.

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The "yearly-night-of-horror", as Seto called it, was starting to wind down. Midnight had come and gone, the snacks had all been eaten, and Mokuba was starting to fall asleep standing up. Seto mentally awed at his brother. There was no way in all hell that a sleepy looking Mokuba, holding on to the worlds reddest balloon could not be cute. Seto was starting to lead his younger brother towards their room since Mokuba was too tired to put up as much of a fight as before. That was until a loud bang maid them both jump in surprise. Hadn't the fire works stopped a while ago?

One of the other kids had popped a balloon using one of the plastic forks from the snack table. This quickly turned into a sport as almost all the kids that were still awake grabbed a fork and started popping any balloon they could find. The domino effect moved Mokuba into action from his wide eyed stupor at the death of the first balloon. Handing his red balloon to Seto, he ran back to courtyard, returning in a couple of seconds with two balloons. He dropped these at Seto's feet before running back and getting two MORE balloons. Seto let this go on about two more times before he couldn't stand it anymore.

"What are you doing?" he asked of his brother who had just deposited two more green balloons at his feet. Mokuba gave Seto a look that seemed to scream "can't you tell". Seto's only response was a lifting of one of his eyebrows. Seeing that his brother wasn't getting the message Mokuba decided to elaborate, "I'm saving the balloons." He stated as if it where the most obvious of things.

Seto blinked, okay, no big deal, his brother had done stranger things before. "Why?" he knew he shouldn't have asked, but really it was instinct that prompted the question.

"Because their popping them." Mokuba wailed, gesturing towards the other kids, sounding like they were doing some atrocious crime.

"And why are you putting all the balloons by me?"

"Because you're the biggest kid around and nobody will try to take them from you." Mokuba seemed to be proud of his foresight and reasoning. Seto couldn't help but stare at his brother, deciding that the conversation was over the younger ran off to save more balloons. He came back empty handed this time though.

"Quickly, we have to hide them, they've figured me out." He said in a panicked voice as he grabbed two of the balloons and threw them into his room. Shrugging Seto picked up as many balloons as he could and followed Mokuba's example. Sometimes it was just best to go along with a seven year old instead of trying to reason with them.

The night ended rather uneventfully, except for the nurses who asked Mokuba and Seto why they had stolen so many of the balloons. And their awes and laughter when Mokuba tried to explain to them about the "Great Balloon Massacre." Just another normal day, nothing special at all. That night Seto went to sleep, with Mokuba in the bed that he shared with his brother, and some 12 to 15 odd balloons scattered around their room.

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Seto was mad, and Mokuba knew it. That was mostly the reason he was now sitting in one of the large sofas in the corner of the party hall. He hated these damned special event business meetings. Not only did his brother insist that he had to come along but he was also expected to act properly under all conditions and circumstances.

This did not seem to involve following his brother around and trying to get his attention at every chance that presented itself. Mokuba knew that too, but he was just so bored. It had ended when Seto had told him in a not so nice voice to behave, this was also accompanied by a glare that promised some sever unknown punishment if the order wasn't followed. The eleven year old mumbled to himself, the worst Seto had done to him in a long time was ground him to his room for a whole day. Mind you that hadn't been very pleasant since Seto had also taken out his TV, radio, and pocket games, before beginning to enforce the sentence. Mokuba hated having nothing to do more then anything else in the world, and spending the entire day just lying around in his room was not an experience he wanted to repeat anytime soon.

But that's what he was doing right now wasn't it. Here he was, his head on one armrest of the sofa, his feet dangling over the other, bored out of his wits. Sure there were other kids, but they were all either younger then him, and thus were allowed to rough house around, or older, in which case they were being paraded around by proud parents who hope they would some day take the family business.

Sighing Mokuba rolled to his side looking at the various people attending the party, and only catching a glimpse of his brother now and then. There was also the fact that he didn't like Seto being angry with him. No real reason, he just didn't. There was so little his brother actually seemed to enjoy, that anything that upset him seemed like a step backwards to the younger.

Mokuba glanced at the clock at the far wall. It was past midnight and nobody seemed to have noticed. New Years had come and gone, and these people didn't give a damn. Mokuba scowled at the crowd. His brother was becoming too much like these people, uncaring except for the future, or immediate, profit. His brother hadn't even come to wish him a happy new year like he did last time. People couldn't forget that quickly could they?

A balloon popped somewhere accompanied by the laughter of some of the younger kids.

Obviously they can, Mokuba thought as he caught another glimpse of his brother's black New Years trench coat. POP Damn Gozaboru, POP damn Kaiba Corp., POP damn special occasion business gatherings POP. Somewhere along the lines of cursing all the circumstances that had lead up to tonight Mokuba was struck by such an ingenious thought, it made him wonder why it hadn't come to him earlier. With a smile he jumped off the sofa and ran of to find the most integral part of his ingenious plan, the cleaning workers were starting to bustle around and quite a few people were making their way toward the exit, he didn't have a lot of time.

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Seto sighed as he walked another circle around the hall. Where was the runt? His imagination eagerly provided him scenes from anything to going to the bathroom to murder. He quickly squelched it. He was on his last nerve, New Years had always been bad but this had been one of the worst, and if Mokuba wished to survive the night he'd better show up soon.

As if on cue Seto felt a tugging on his trench coat, turning around he found Mokuba giving him the most innocent smile he could. This didn't quite dispelle Seto's murderous thoughts, simply downgraded them to a level off 'normalcy'.

Mokuba gestured for Seto to bend down. Raising an eyebrow in question he bent on one knee until he was eye to eye with his brother. Before he could inquire as to what was the matter, Mokuba was holding up a tomato red balloon to him, forcing it into his older brother's hands.

"What...?"

"Keep this safe for me will you?" Mokuba said before making a beeline for the exit. Seto stood up and blinked after his brother who stopped just outside the main door waiting for him to catch up. "What the hell?" was the phrase that was running through his head, he looked from the balloon to his brother, and then back to the balloon before something clicked in his head. With a smirk he gestured toward one of the clean up crew and made the most unusual request of that evening.

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The drive home was rather quiet, Mokuba wondered if his plan had worked at all. When his brother had come out of the building he still had the red balloon, but what was more disconcerting was the smirk that Seto had. It reminded Mokuba a whole lot off Yami's "I've-beaten-you-at-your-own- game", very scary. Even stranger were the three boxes that were now in the trunk of their limousine. Mokuba looked at his brother from the corner of his eye, they were still a couple of hours from home, the balloon was lying between them bouncing with every motion of the car. Seto seemed dead set on ignoring his brother. The smirk was gone, and his eyes once again looked cold and dead. With a sigh Mokuba resigned himself to the long boring drive home.

As it was, by the time they made it back to the mansion Mokuba had nearly fallen asleep. Yawning and rubbing his eyes he went inside the building, through the entrance hall, into the main first floor living room, and dropped face first into the couch. Deciding that this wasn't such a good idea, he turned his head to the side to breath easier and promptly tuned out the rest of the world.

There was some shuffling around him but he didn't pay it any attention. "Too tired!" his body screamed at him and he agreed. That is until something bumped him on the head. It was soft so he decided to ignore it. Then a whole lot of similar somethings fell on him. With a yelp he sat up staring at the room which had been spotless when he had entered. The room, including him and the sofa, were covered in...balloons. A familiar red balloon bounced of his head and floated in front of his eyes before sinking to the ground.

Mokuba turned around, wide eyes focusing on his brother who was leaning against the back of the couch with the devil's grin on his face. Mokuba blinked, no, it wasn't a trick of the light, his brother was grinning, not smirking, not smiling, but grinning.

"Happy New Year."

With a shout Mokuba pounced on his brother, the momentum causing the older to lose his balance and fall backwards. Mokuba's mind was running in happy little circles, which his body didn't seem to appreciate. He found that keeping his eyes open was becoming too much of a chore, "Happy New Year," he mumbled to Seto as sleep finally overcame him.

The End

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Last Updated: October 9th, 2006 


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